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BY ANNA M. TINSLEY | Fort Worth Star-Telegram | June 1, 2013

AUSTIN — Local lawmakers headed to Austin earlier this year with high hopes.

They arrived with a variety of goals, including boosting funding for public education, adding money for transportation, increasing transparency in government and protecting gun owners’ rights.

Not everybody got everything.

But most say they were able to accomplish at least some of what they wanted in the 83rd legislative session that ended Memorial Day. They immediately began a 30-day special session.

Here’s how Tarrant County lawmakers assessed the session:

BY DAVE MONTGOMERY | Fort Worth Star-Telegram | May 20, 2013

AUSTIN — With time running out, legislative negotiators on Friday forged a two-year spending plan that includes an additional $3.9 billion for education, offsetting deep cuts imposed in public school funding two years ago.

The spending package, spread over three pieces of legislation, also calls for a total 3 percent pay increase for state employees as well as commitments to $2 billion in long-range water funding and at least $1 billion in tax relief.

Members of both Houses have just over a week to ratify the 2014-15 budget before lawmakers draw the curtain on their 140-day legislative session on May 27.

Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, the number two member of the House Democratic leadership, called the budget a “a good compromise.”

“I wish the Legislature would fully restore the money that was slashed two years ago but this is a compromise and a positive development and I believe I can support this budget,” said the Tarrant County House member. “While it’s not perfect, it’s a big improvement.”

AUSTIN (AP/CBSDFW.COM) – Updated: 9:15 p.m. On the same weekend that the National Rifle Association gathered in Houston for their annual convention, Texas lawmakers passed a series of bills that would make it easier and cheaper to own and carry a gun in Texas.

The gun laws softened by the approved batch of bills were already among the country’s most firearms-friendly, allowing college students to carry handguns in class, putting potentially armed marshals in public schools and exempting the state from any future federal bans on assault rifles, high-capacity magazines or universal background checks. The hours required to obtain a concealed handgun license would also be cut in half.

House Democrats support smart investments in water infrastructure, which is why every Democratic member of the House voted for House Bill 4, the landmark measure that establishes the funding mechanism to support the state water plan. We face many challenges in Texas, and water is one of them. However, our children should be our No. 1 priority.

That’s why House Democrats believe Texas should first restore the $5.4 billion cut from public education before spending money from the rainy-day fund for other issues. And because a drawdown from the rainy-day fund requires the support of two-thirds of the House, the minority party has more leverage than usual — and we intend to use that leverage to help our schoolchildren.

Texas is 49th in the nation in education funding, spending $3,000 less per student than the national average.

Texas schools are still feeling the impact of the budget cuts: larger class sizes, teacher layoffs, cuts to pre-kindergarten funding, fewer tutoring opportunities to help students pass state tests, cuts in teacher training for science. And the list goes on.

When state Rep. Chris Turner started looking for other states that allow their politicians to retire without leaving their jobs, he could only find one: Texas.

At a public hearing Monday evening on his bill to end the practice, the Grand Prairie Democrat said the lucrative benefit — which got widespread attention when Gov. Rick Perry revealed that he was both collecting his salary and a pension from the state — flies in the face of the oft-repeated brag that Texas stands out as a beacon of budgetary restraint.

“At this Capitol we frequently tout Texas as a national example for fiscal responsibility,” said Turner, who has filed House Bill 413, which would ban “double dipping.” “This legislation helps us make that case more credibly, I think, by barring elected officials from being paid twice by our state taxpayers for one job.”

Turner said he was inspired to file HB 413 after learning of Perry’s early pension draw, but his bill would not cut off the governor’s pension. It would only apply to future state officeholders. Nor would it apply to nonelected retirees, including teachers or state employees, who are elected to state office, he said.

In compiling research for the legislation, Turner asked the National Conference of State Legislatures to identify states that allow the type of double-dipping Perry is doing. The group told him Texas was the only state the NCSL could find.

The organization said that more than a dozen states specifically prohibit their elected officials from receiving a pension annuity unless they actually leave office and retire, Turner told the House Pensions Committee on Monday.

Days after the House voted to strip a 22-year-old reference to climate change from Texas law, a House committee heard testimony on Earth Day about the adverse effects that climate change could bring to the state.

The hearing came just days after the House voted to strike a provision referring to climate change from Texas Law. House Bill 788, authored by state Rep. Wayne Smith, R-Baytown, attempts to reclaim regulatory powers for the state from the EPA. Currently, the EPA issues permits to industrial facilities that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases.

HB 788 aims to let the state regulate the emission of greenhouse gases. But in the process it strikes five words from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s mandate, which date from 1991. The provision allows the TCEQ to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for the purpose of controlling “climatic changes, including global warming.”

The bill passed 119-23, and now goes to the Senate for consideration. A last-minute effort by state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, to restore the climate change language fared a little better, but was also defeated 91-50. Turner called the language deletion a needless regression.

“I don’t believe it makes any sense for this Legislature to turn back the clock 22 years and remove references to this topic in Texas law,” he said. “And I think we need we tie our hands if we do not give TCEQ the option of dealing with this issue if circumstances necessitate.”

After Monday’s House panel hearing, committee member Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, said the politicization of the debate on climate change made future action by the Legislature unlikely.

“You can only send a message if somebody’s listening.” And those listening, he said, are “not the people who need to.”

“There’s a lot of evidence that the 1999 passage of the renewable portfolio standard was not only good for the environment but great for the economy. But in the last eight years its been really tough to replicate that success,” he said. “The disposition of the Texas Legislature seems to be to pin its hopes on the past, and not the future.”